Page 28 of Dead of Summer

“There she is.” He sighs. “ Ophelia —the second one, of course. Been waiting for her to be finished for about three years now.”

Why do men always call a boat she ? Faith wonders. Probably because a boat is something they like to own, steering them whichever way they like. An illusion, though, isn’t it? When the ocean is really in charge.

“Why the second?” Faith asks, keeping her voice light.

“The first one was sold off years ago,” David replies quickly.

“This one is better,” Geoffrey snaps. His fingers grip at the railing.

Faith lowers her sunglasses, looking out at the boat, where staff continue to dash around on the yacht, busily preparing for Geoffrey’s arrival.

“Over a hundred meters long,” Geoffrey says proudly.

“See, David, the party you are dreading is already paying off dividends. This mooring just came through last night. What’s-his-name down at the harbor rang me up and said it magically opened up for us.

Took me a lifetime to get a mooring in front of my own damn property. ”

“Where will you take it?” Faith asks him.

He doesn’t look at her as he answers, his eyes fixed out at the water. “Newport probably. Possibly Martha’s Vineyard if those assholes let us moor.”

“Dad had a bad experience with the port there. Said his last yacht was too big, not up to code,” David says, glancing at Faith. He raises his eyebrows to let her know not to push the topic.

“It was bullshit, and they know it. They were just trying to punish me.” Geoffrey’s voice rises into an intimidating growl. Faith takes a peek at David. His mouth flicks downward, distracted. Geoffrey leans past her and speaks to his son. “David, let me show you the offices.”

“You coming?” he calls back at them as he starts to walk away.

“Be right there,” David says, giving Faith a helpless smile as he makes a quick stop at the table and slurps the rest of his coffee down. “I guess we are going to look at Dad’s new yacht.”

But Geoffrey holds up a thick hand. “Only David. I have some things to talk to my son about.”

David begins to follow his father. “We’ll go for dinner instead, okay?” he says. “I won’t be long. Promise.”

“Coming, David?” Geoffrey growls.

“Yes, of course.”

“Then hurry the fuck up.”

Without breaking stride, they arrive at the dock and step onto a small white speedboat. She watches as it cuts through the water toward the Ophelia II .

After they leave, Faith steps softly down the hall to Geoffrey Clarke’s office. She stands in the silence for a beat making sure there’s no sign of any staff, but the hall is dark and empty. She twists the handle and slips inside, shutting the door carefully behind her.

The office smells like leather and something slightly sour she can’t place.

The desk is almost comically large. Its top is arranged with an assortment of the kinds of things she’d always imagined men like Geoffrey would own, a marble globe, each country marked with a different color stone.

Her heart thumps as she sinks into his leather chair and examines the keyhole in his desk drawer.

She’s relieved to find it’s an antique, punched through a polished brass plate, probably at least a hundred years old.

Analog designs are always easier to navigate than something new and electronic.

To pick a lock all you need is relatively dexterous fingers and time. As a child Faith had both. She’d started picking locks out of sheer necessity as she increasingly found herself locked out of her house when her mom stayed out at night.

Faith had gone to the public library and asked for books about locksmithing, raising the eyebrows of the uptight librarian.

She pored over them, learning how different locks functioned and what she needed to do to release them.

To practice, one evening she’d left her mom drinking at the bar and had snuck home and picked the lock on her front door.

It had opened with minimal trouble, the spring giving way just like the books she’d read had suggested, and the door had opened easily.

She found the mechanics of locks were satisfyingly predictable, unlike the rest of her life.

After that there were other doors. Faith was deliberate, choosing only those houses that were dark and empty.

At first, she took very little—a single diamond ring, a tennis necklace, a watch—so that the owner, upon discovering the item missing, would always wonder if it had just been misplaced, sucked up in the vacuum, or dropped behind a bureau.

But those were just the first in a series of indiscretions, slowly becoming more daring than the last. Each brought her closer to something she would regret, something she wouldn’t be able to come back from.

The house was dark when she’d arrived. She’d been careful in selecting this one, the mansion of a rich socialite who had lost her husband.

Faith had followed the woman for days, shadowing her to nail appointments and salon visits.

She seemed to have few friends; a discovery that made Faith so sad she almost gave up.

But then she saw the bracelet. It dangled loosely from the woman’s wrist when she handed over the keys to a valet at an expensive restaurant.

She was meeting a man this time. Good for her , Faith had thought as she sat on a bench outside and watched them through the window as they ate.

He had slicked-back hair and was touching her.

There had been signs she should have noticed from the start. The door to the house was already unlocked, the alarm system switched off. Faith had crept up into the house, her feet soft on the staircase that elegantly curved up to the second floor.

She couldn’t find the bracelet. There must have been a safe somewhere, she had begun to realize with frustration.

She was about to leave when a low moan came from behind a door.

She should have left then, gone home and forgotten all about it, but instead she crept toward it.

She flicked on the light to find the woman curled up on the floor of the bathroom covered in blood.

She’d been hit on the head with something very hard.

Her eyes went in and out of focus as Faith cradled the woman’s head in her lap.

“He took everything,” she gasped. “He said he loved me.”

“Shhhh.”

Faith had called the ambulance then. As the sirens neared, the woman gently took her last breath, and Faith’s survival instinct had kicked in. When the police came, they found only her fingerprints. Faith was already on her way to New York.

Faith moves around Geoffrey Clarke’s desk now.

It is a surprisingly simple case really, she notes, moving around it to the inside and looking at the drawers.

In her mind she can see the intricate set of brass sliders and gears that will need to shift for the inner toggles to align.

And for that all you need is a simple hairpin.

Faith pulls one from the underside of her ponytail, opening the prongs slightly to increase the tension.

She slides it into the lock, feeling the metal scrape against the interior workings.

She feels them fall one by one into place until the spring inside gives way and the drawer moves slightly forward with a satisfying pop.

She pauses now, her fingers resting lightly on the handles, and glances at the door before sliding the heavy wooden drawer open.

Inside is a grid of wooden compartments.

Faith realizes she doesn’t know what she is looking for at all.

There is little in the drawer. A heavy brass letter opener with a compass on the hilt, the key to some sort of Mercedes, a bar of chocolate—which, Faith notes, is opened—with several large bites taken from the top.

That’s it. She starts to shut the drawer, and notices the compartments shift ever so slightly forward.

They are in a solid wooden piece resting inside the drawer.

Her chest constricts as she lifts it up, releasing a loud scrape. She pauses, her ears roaring, waiting for any sounds in the hall. Peeking below she sees a shiny blue envelope. She slides it out and opens it.

Inside, there is a thin stack of photographs.

They are glossy prints, the kind people used to get from a disposable camera that they’d get developed at the drugstore.

Faith holds the photos delicately by the edges to avoid smudging them as she flips through.

In one, Geoffrey Clarke is standing on a dock in front of a very tall boat.

He is younger, less gray in his hair, his spine stacked a little straighter.

The name of the boat is painted next to him, Ophelia .

This must be the original. Faith flips to the next.

This is of David and his father standing next to each other.

She hasn’t seen any other photographs of David as a teen.

She brings it closer. Their faces are overexposed, pale and flat in the glare of the flash.

Geoffrey, a crystal tumbler full of something in his hand, gives a crooked grin.

His hand rests heavily on his son’s shoulder.

David is smaller and slighter as a teen.

His head looks almost wobbly on his shoulders.

His teeth are clenched in an unnatural smile.

His eyes focus on something or someone out of the frame.

They are standing next to a railing. Behind them the sky is a hazy black.

The last pictures are group shots. There are several men Faith doesn’t recognize.

They’re wearing polo shirts and tan shorts.

Silver watches hang heavy around their wrists.

They are smoking cigars. David stands next to them awkwardly.

His hand clasps his arm nervously. The reflection in the window has caught something across the room.

Faith holds it up toward the window, squinting.

The flash has caught it at an angle. A sofa across the room.

Something is there, pieces of it reflecting the flash like the scales of a fish.

Faith walks to the window and carefully pulls back the curtain just enough to send a beam of bright sunlight onto the image.

Something protrudes from underneath the fabric; it doubles and blurs in the reflection, but she can make out a slender leg and a small foot.

She returns the photos to the envelope and slides the drawer back into place just as a brisk set of footsteps come from the hall. She freezes, waiting as they go past, receding into the distance. Now she moves to the next drawer.

A copy of Geoffrey Clarke’s book, The Success Manual , sits on the top.

It had to have been published at least three decades ago now and looks it, with its dated blocky neon font.

A photo of Geoffrey on the back shows him smiling arrogantly.

He had no hint of a beard back then and much thicker hair.

He looks remarkably like David. Faith shudders and goes to put it back into the drawer when a stack of pages below it catches her eye.

She tilts her head to read the top page. It is a nondisclosure agreement.

Faith has never seen one in real life. She scans the page until she gets to the bottom, where a name is signed in shaky blue ink.

Bernice Gallo

The page below it is another NDA. It reads the same. There is a whole stack of them there, all reading the same. Only the signatures are different. She looks back at the first one. The date next to the signature is the same, July 5, 2008.

Orla O’Connor

She is still trying to make sense of it all when more footsteps sound in the hallway. They grow louder and pause outside the door. She ducks down under the desk as the door opens. A throat being cleared. She can see a pair of shiny Italian shoes. They stop a few paces from the desk.

An incoming text dings loudly on her phone, and she quickly smothers it with her hand as though to shush it.

Below the desk she freezes. She begins to panic, wondering how she could possibly explain herself.

She watches the feet shuffle back and forth, then turn abruptly back to the door, tapping loudly as they disappear from sight.

She hears the door as it closes again. Faith lets out a slow uneasy breath, unsure how she wasn’t caught.

Faith slides the papers back into the drawer.

Then she creeps sheepishly back out into the hall, run-walking away from the office door.

She hears something mechanical as she walks down the hall, followed by a familiar beep.

Faith is heavy with dread as she keeps going.

She doesn’t need to look this time to know a camera is following her.

It’s only once she is safely back in her room that she remembers the text and looks at her phone.

The message from Elena reads: Call me. But only when you are alone.